Day 51: Still Messing With Seats

Agenda-
Presentations on Color Theory and Visual Literacy
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Study Hall
Homeroom

Creative writing was good. Loryn came over and said that her group member wasn’t doing anything. I am not sure how that works. They both come to class every day. They both get out their laptops. What are they doing if not working on their story? All the other students are working. I hear them working all the time. I guess we need to talk to both girls and see what is going on there. Meg, Mariah, and I have finished writing our story and we started editing today. We have a lot of editing to do. Then after we polish it up we should be all done. Next, we are going to have the class read each quest story one at a time and leave comments in the discussion tab. Then in class we will discuss the story together. We are hoping to help them practice some good editing skills. Then probably give them a day to edit anything and then change their groups up again. I will be sad to see our group dissolve but I wouldn’t mind working with most of the students in that class. So it might be fun to work with someone else.

The sophomores got to try sitting wherever they wanted to sit today. I told them they could sit anywhere they wanted to but the desks had to stay where they were. The 4 boys, Sean, Jake, Adam, and Ryan whined at first because it meant one of them had to go elsewhere. But once they saw I wasn’t backing down, Ryan went and sat with a couple girls and the 3 boys were fairly well behaved. I was actually happier with their behavior than with the group of all girls. Tori sat in a single desk I was going to use for myself behind a group of three desk and thus the 4 girls ended up sitting together. The group as a whole was pretty well behaved. However, there was a lot of chit chat and even more off topic conversations than usual. I ended up moving Garrett because he was sitting alone. I liked having him with Jeremie and Arseniy. I think what I am going to do is have them in different groups every day. I want to have them work with different people. I will just have them draw from the coffee can of doom every day and like colors will sit together. This will keep things interesting. Plus sometimes they will get to sit with friends and sometimes they won’t. They will learn how to work with everyone in the class.

This group of seniors is still hard. It is hard to get them to open their mouths and speak up. I need to do something about it! I ask them a question and wait for an answer but all I get is whispers or nothing at all. I don’t understand. It isn’t like I ever tell them they are wrong. I never ridicule them. In fact even when they are way off base with their passage choices I work to try and make it work. They are also always on the fence. Every time I try to get them to take a side on something they sit right in the middle. They seem afraid to have an opinion. And even when they do they are easily swayed. For their next question I am having them look at textual evidence and pick a side to argue from. They pick a character and then decide if that character is flat or round. I am hoping that they will at least pick different characters even if they don’t pick different sides. The question after that requires them to compare their poetry to that of Aurora’s. I am hoping this will help them connect a little with the book. They at least always have their work done.